NoiseNinja 1.1 released!By
Mike Tomkins(Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 11:35 EST)Word comes to us from Jim Christian of PictureCode LLC that he's released a new version of NoiseNinja, an excellent program for cleaning up high ISO sensor noise, scanner noise and grain from digital images.We must admit at this point, we've been rather remiss. When Jim recently announced the original version of NoiseNinja, we tried it out intending to tell our readers about the program. We corresponded with Jim several times, asking questions and making suggestions about the program, planning to take some of our high ISO sample images from our reviews to demonstrate what NoiseNinja was capable of. Work pressures prevented us from ever finishing the article though.

Our apologies to Jim - even if we never got around to mentioning it at the time, we were thoroughly impressed with the results to be obtained with NoiseNinja! If you ever shoot at high ISO settings, this is one program that definitely should be part of your digital darkroom... The program is fairly simple to pick up, especially if you have one of the 25 cameras already profiled for it - and if you don't, you can create the profile yourself and contribute the result for other NoiseNinja users to try. If you want to get down to some manual tweaking though, the program has a very high degree of control (albeit with a little work required to understand it all!)

NoiseNinja is available for Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP, and an activation code costs $29 for home users, or $69 for the Pro version that enables some extra features. A calibration chart can be downloaded for free, or a printed version purchased for $14 plus shipping. A CD-ROM of NoiseNinja can be ordered for $10 plus shipping, and requires an activation code, saving users on poor internet connections the trouble of trying to download the program. Shipping costs are $5 in the US, or $10 internationally. European customers must also pay VAT (value added tax).

Macintosh users will be pleased to hear that Jim does plan for a Mac version in the future (timeframe unknown), and there are also plans for a Photoshop plugin version (as opposed to the current standalone executable).

Original Source Press Release:

PICTURECODE RELEASES NOISE NINJA 1.1

Austin, Texas (December 10, 2003) -- PictureCode today released version 1.1 of Noise Ninja(tm), the highly regarded image noise removal software application. Introduced only a month ago, Noise Ninja has rapidly gained a following among photography professionals and enthusiasts for its ability to quickly and easily eliminate high-ISO noise and grain from digital images while preserving detail.

In direct response to user feedback, Noise Ninja 1.1 includes a variety of refinements and new features:

A complete list of improvements is available on the web at www.picturecode.com/update_log.htm.

Noise Ninja is based on a powerful mathematical theory called wavelet analysis that yields superior noise reduction quality. In addition, the software is fast and easy to use, and it includes an innovative tool called the Noise Brush that simplifies fine-tuning of results.

Noise Ninja 1.1 runs under Windows XP, 2000, NT, ME, and 98SE. It can be downloaded for free from www.picturecode.com/download.htm. A license key is required to unlock certain features. Keys for version 1.0 will continue to work for version 1.1. New keys are priced at $29 for the Home license (allowing 8-bit-per-channel file output), and $69 for the Professional license (allowing 16-bit file output and batch processing).